An Hour & A Half; 90 Minutes Or A Lifetime?

I once read a great quote by Albert Einstein describing relativity and I want to share it with you as a preamble to what will be my first actual blog article for many weeks. I will be sharing with you in another article soon as to why my blogging has been at a premium lately, but first it’s over to Albert.

“An hour sitting with a pretty girl on a park bench passes like a minute, but a minute sitting on a hot stove seems like an hour. That is relativity.”

And so with that quote in mind I want to share with you my experiences from a night in April 2012, which contained one of the longest 90 minute periods of my life. It may seem that I am about to embark on a lamentation of doom and gloom. But actually some very positive conclusions were drawn from the experience.

Last Saturday I received a phone call from a lady wanting to book me for an evening of clairvoyance at a pub in Shurdington, just outside Cheltenham. My first thought was to turn it down as I do not like working in pubs. As far as I’m concerned anywhere where alcohol and spiritual work cross paths is a no-no for me. I have worked in pubs in the past though; in situations where people book function rooms and hold clairvoyant events. In truth, I never liked doing them, especially before the smoking ban came into effect. Even though people were not allowed to smoke in the function room for the duration, you still couldn’t stop the stench of cigarette smoke wafting throughout. I should also explain that especially in the UK, pubs have history; in many cases they are 100′s of years old and the energies within these establishments can be very negative to say the least. Indeed I remember the last time I worked in a pub around four years ago, it wasn’t an evening that I remember fondly. But nonetheless I did take the booking for Tuesday April 3 at 7:30 p.m.

I turned up at the venue and it was apparent that the people running the event, who also happened to be the proprietors, did not have a great deal of experience in organizing such events. But when I got up in front of the small audience and started speaking I knew straight away that I was in for a hard night; what I didn’t realize though was just how hard it would be. I should also point out here that I’m not a great lover of clairvoyant nights in general. I don’t feel that clairvoyance has got anything to do with spirituality; all you are doing is communicating with the astral planes, which will be at various degrees of ease or difficulty depending on the energies in the building and the receptiveness of the audience/congregation. Without wishing to sound judgemental, these events tend to attract people who have no particular interest in spirituality, but who simply want a message from the medium. Generally speaking they will only respond to stuff they want to hear, so when I stood up to do my preamble and I felt the coldness from the audience I knew immediately that it was going to be tough.

I should also point out here how clairvoyance works and explode a few myths. Firstly, these events tend to be called “clairvoyant nights” because clairvoyance is a word that people understand. It comes from the French, meaning “clear seeing”. In reality mediums generally work with three faculties; clairaudience (clear hearing), which is a like a silent voice in the head, clairsentience (clear sensing), which as the name suggests means working with your sense of intuition, and clairvoyance. When a medium links in to those realms of higher vibration, those who wish to communicate will give the medium their information using one of those three methods or a combination of all three. The medium then has to interpret that information and pass it on to the sitter via the voice. Bearing in mind that literally everything has a vibration, this also applies to the information supplied to the medium and the medium’s voice. The sitter then needs to respond to the medium, also via the voice, which in turn also has its own vibration. It’s the coming together of the three vibrations that create the harmonious link between the two worlds. To many a medium’s frustration, no matter how many times you say this to people, you still get those who do not respond, or who respond in a negative way. When this happens the medium has to work extra hard to get the information across, and if they are not experienced in dealing with negative responses they can die a death right there and then. So, with ten years experience under my belt I died a death last night. I have never before experienced such negative and non-responsive people; and just for good measure I had a group of teenage girls giggling and talking among themselves virtually all the way through. Before I get to the nitty-gritty I should explain something else about mediumship.

To say that mediumship is important is like saying you would cause an impact by removing a single grain of sand from the Sahara Desert. We only think there is something “mystical” about it because we have lost sight of the “Self” (who we really are) whilst in these physical bodies. We are all beings of light with unlimited potential; no limitations whatsoever, except the ones we impose on ourselves, therefore we are all mediums. To think about it logically, why should we not have a link back to where we came from? I’m not even a great lover of calling myself a medium either, because by doing so, I’m putting myself in a box and giving myself a category that somehow limits me.

So, there I was, waiting for the ground to open up and swallow me; but wait…… surely there is a positive to come out of this negative? Of course there was, and in many ways, I am so glad for that most awful of experiences. Firstly, I cast my mind back to how the old me would have dealt with it. I would have shown my frustration and eventually I would have probably stopped, sat down, and told those being disruptive that I wouldn’t continue unless they left. I may also have reacted with a slightly aggressive tone and become very impatient. It’s also true to say that any decent medium doesn’t mind getting a “no”, it just means we have to do bit more work, but the absolute worst part of the evening was the horrendously long periods of silence when I lost my link completely; a silence intermittently broken by the giggling of the teenage girls. But I realized that I have evolved quite a lot over the last few years. I was very aware of my reaction, and even though I was not exactly best pleased at being in that situation, I saw it as a challenge that needed to be met. I also realized I was being tested and I shall explain.

Here I am, someone who has been guided by Eastern philosophies and who calls himself a devotee of Sri Sathya Sai Baba; I even have Baba’s quotes on my stationary, “help ever hurt never”, “love all serve all” and Baba’s teachings are very precise; “see God in everyone”. He also very often reminds us that “hands that serve are holier than lips that pray”. I’ve also read Paramahansa Yogananda, Eckhart Tolle and Neale Donald Walsch, so I am more than aware of the importance of letting go of the ego in order to realize the “Self”. So, was I really going to succumb to my ego and pass judgement on those who clearly did not know any better? Was the evening about me and my image or was it about doing God’s work? Was I really going to forget all the wisdom that’s come my way over the past few years for the sake of my ego being knocked? I’m just so thankful that I had the vision to see what was really happening from a spiritual perspective. Another thing that I’ve learned recently is that it is not our circumstances that depend on whether we are happy or sad, it’s how we deal with them. I’ve also learned that the universe is in constant flow and that it has been created as a paradox. So within the realm of matter’s ebb and flow we are not always going to have circumstances that we like. But what we can do is accept that they are the only set of circumstances we have at that moment and deal with them in the best way possible and to the best of our ability. So, all these things were going through my mind and I simply got on with the job. The old me would also have immediately blamed my angels and guides for not doing their job properly, but I understand that it was only because of the hard work and support of those “unseen forces” who work with me that I was able to see it through. It was such a relief when it was all over, but it all ended on a positive note.

I was very surprised that some of the ladies in the audience came up to me afterwards and shook my hand and thanked me for their messages. Some others were also apologizing for the behaviour of those who had been disruptive and said how disgusted they were. They informed the pub management who also apologized to me and informed me that the perpetrators would be barred from attending any future events. In reality the energy in that room was the most negative I have ever encountered; that was the crux of the problem. The giggling girls didn’t exactly help, but in the years I have been working as a medium I’ve encountered a lot worse. I explained to all those who offered apologies that they were not necessary and that we should try not to judge those who disrupted; they clearly didn’t know any better.

I wasn’t booked at that venue by coincidence; I was booked in order to be tested. I’m very grateful for the experience but I wont be working there again.

A Londoner by birth, Richard now lives in the South West of England. He has written 13 books in the spiritual/self-help genre and also produced eight CDs; five of meditation and three of mantra chanting. However, he has removed most of his prior work from circulation as he feels that it no longer represents who he is today. As well as being a writer, Richard works in a hospice. He is also an artist when he gets the inspiration, and worked as a medium for 17 years.

Since the so-called “shift” at the end of 2012, Richard has had what he describes as, “a series of eureka moments”, where life has started to reveal its true meaning. As a result, he saw the futility of continuing his work as a medium and finally gave it up early in 2018.